Jay Moulton is the President of Economics Learning Systems and PerformanceForward.ca. Jay began his digital education journey in video production, advanced to Apple iBooks, and then completed his apprenticeship producing SCORM-based courses and content packages for Introductory Economics and Financial Literacy.

The framework is based on hundreds of interviews with teachers and includes my personal experiences producing digital content for students.

In the white paper, we list the instructional materials and collaboration tools generally found in online learning, along with a simple description, short commentary, and a power ranking of each tool. We call these tools “Content Containers,” since they contain the online course content.

Our framework and findings are summarized in this image:

Not surprisingly, text is the least engaging Content Container. In contrast, course teachers can be the most powerful factor in online learning.

The white paper explores each of the Content Containers in further depth, providing examples, and weighing the pros and cons of each type.

Naturally, various types of instructional materials and collaboration tools will be more or less effective in different courses and settings. But it helps to have a scorecard to tell the players!